River's End

Wherever our Colorado River ends, life recedes with its water, it no longer has a delta. There are only miles of cracked earth. Far in the distance deep fissures spread. Crags, low mountains, stretch across horizon, separating empty sun baked clay from high desert clouds. Dark clouds, with their life giving rain, appear to float, migrate over low mountains. Darkness covers this portion of earth: shadow of cloud, depth of retreated water, vast emptiness expanding from neglect. Some light penetrates openings in clouds. Pink and purple illuminates their edges. Sunlight reveals mountain sides. Atmosphere lends interest to an otherwise barren plane. It is unusual to see a landscape with limitless potential and no life. Potential has not been drained from this place yet. In time countless people will have bled all water from the river, leaving a truly empty place. Light reflects from hardening clay. Sun’s halo reveals lifeless matter, like Saturn’s frozen rings, but no ice crystals here. Only baked earth where water ran, Colorado River’s temporary end.